CCM Gallery

Artist Biography

A professional photographer for more than four decades, Joe Guerriero operates a small commercial studio out of his home in Fredon, New Jersey with clients that have included Barnes & Noble, M&M Mars, Zurich North America, Selective Ins., Poland Spring, and Samsung, among others. His first love, however, is travel/documentary photography.

His work has appeared in publications including Sports Illustrated, Family Circle, Photo District News, and many trade publications. Joe has completed international photo projects in Pakistan, Turkey, Cuba and Italy.

In addition to being an adjunct instructor of photography at Sussex County Community College and Peters Valley School of Craft, his work has been featured at several national galleries; and he has completed his first feature documentary film about the U.S. embargo on Cuba, Curtain of Water, which has aired on PBS and at many festivals including the The Havana Film Festival as well as at several universities, and organizations. For the past five years he has led photography trips to Cuba, Bhutan and Tuscany.

Artist Statement

“I first went to Cuba in 1999 with the Maine Photo Workshops, the first outside group permitted to hold workshops there. My project, a photo story on Chinatown, Havana, was published in Photo District News. With that trip, I was hooked —I knew there were many stories about Cuba to be told. I sought and was issued a photojournalist license from the U. S. Treasury Department.

In over 20 trips since that time, I have worked on many Cuban documentary projects. In my first excursions, I befriended some Cuban photographers and was introduced to a Babalawo, a high priest in the Santeria religion. He and I became friends as well, and we worked on a project aimed at giving the world a clear view of his religion. To this end and three years later, I produced a photo book and a short film that would win awards in the U.S. and China. In 2007, I photographed a story on the “Wemilere Festival of African Roots” in Guanabacoa, an annual May festival that celebrates the Afro-Cuban connection, especially in dance and music.

It was after this trip that I began thinking about the embargo and how it was affecting the Cuban people. So, in 2010 I returned to begin shooting “Curtain of Water,” my documentary film about the embargo. At first, I interviewed only people in Cuba about how the policy affected their lives. When I returned to the U.S. and screened the short film, people wanted to know more. They wanted to hear both sides. I worked for three years to expand this project into a feature-length film that showed the arguments for and against the embargo. There is an attraction that people feel about Cuba after visiting even once. It’s mostly about the people, their warmth and friendliness, their art, music and culture. I have witnessed the great hope that the Cuban people feel about certain U.S. policy changes. And I’ve witnessed the current backtracking of said policy. No one yet knows where it will go or how it will affect the Cuban people. Change is coming, even if at a crawl, by design, I suspect, from the Cuban government.”

Joe Guerriero